Grant Scheme Activities

Working Group activities and related events

April 2017Update on GrasslandscapeSome members of the Forages Working Group are involved in the project GrassLandscape - Bridging landscape genomics and quantitative genetics for a regional adaptation of European grasslands to climate change (FACCE-JPI ERA-NET Plus action ‘Climate Smart Agriculture: Adaptation of agricultural systems in Europe’). The project is coordinated by J.P. Sampoux, French member of the Forages WG. The consortium includes INRA and EPHE in France, IPK in Germany, IBERS in the UK and ILVO in Belgium. The main objective of the project is to detect genomic markers of climatic adaptation in the natural diversity of perennial ryegrass and to use this information to adapt this species to the anthropogenic climate change foreseen to happen in next decades. In 2015, 500 accessions from the natural diversity of perennial ryegrass were sampled from European genebanks and 50 populations were newly collected across Europe. In 2016, all these materials were genotyped based on high-throughput sequencing technology which released more than 300 000 SNPs usable for genetic analyses. Populations were also assessed in field trials (2015 to 2017) and on high-throughput phenotyping platform (2015). Results of the project will provide new C&E data to feed the corresponding perennial ryegrass accessions in the EURISCO database and accessions used will be flagged in the European Forage Collection (EFC). Ultimately, genetic pools adapted to future regional climates of Europe are expected to be released and referenced in European collections.

ECPGR WG for Forages towards 2020s (Forages 2020): the final Activity Report is now available online [here]

A new workplan was developed for Phase IX (see below, Working Group operative documents)

November 2015The Forages2020 workshop took place 9-11 November 2015 in Alnarp, Sweden [more info]

December 2014The project on “ECPGR WG for Forages towards 2020s (Forages 2020)”, submitted by the Working Groups on Forages, Wild Species Conservation in genetic reserves and Documentation and Information for funding under the ECPGR Activity Grant Scheme, was selected by the Executive Committee.

2013A second workshop on the “Establishment of the European Forages Collection” took place at NordGen, Alnarp, Sweden, 9-11 April 2013 as part of the AEGIS Grant Scheme. Final report of the workshop (5.6 MB)